cycle Palestine: CHAPTER 11 AREA C AND BEDOUIN COMMUNITIES

Area C
 
The majority of the land area of the West bank (outside of the main towns) is known as Area C.  In Area C the Palestinian Authority is not allowed provide services, and Palestinians are not allowed to build. Israeli settlements continue to be built though.
 
This means that there are no family health services for the Bedouin communities, who were displaced from the Negev Desert, which is now part of Israel. 
 
MAP's mobile clinic provides maternity and postnatal care, vaccinations, care for diabetes and ongoing conditions, support for disabilities and much more.

We saw mainly women and children (and goats), because the men mainly work in construction, and have to queue at checkpoints from the early hours of the morning in the hope of getting work every day.
 
The Bedouin communities also get some income from dairy products (blessed are the cheesemakers).

Israeli settlements are usually on the hills, and the separation wall is a major feature of the landscape.

The Bedouin communities are not allowed electricity, or to build, and are constantly under threat of demolition.  They use donated solar panels, which are often smashed by settlers.

In the meantime, services, including electricity, are provided to the settlements nearby.

In the next image you can see some of the “buildings” of the demolition-threatened village of Khan Al Ahmar, and on the hill the Israeli settlement, and some river valleys.
 
Sometimes water flows down these valleys and, of course, children go and play in it.  This is when the settlers put their sewage into the water, and the mobile clinic staff report a high number of cases of bacterial infections.

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